The present invention relates to vacuum cleaners and in particular to a vacuum cleaner with an air jet for dislodging debris along floor edges.
Debris commonly collects along floor edges at the bases of walls. Generally, even if a user maneuvers the vacuum cleaner against the wall, much of the debris escapes capture by the vacuum cleaner. Hand attachments are often provided to draw the debris in to the vacuum cleaner, but require manipulating a hose, involving detaching an end of the hose, attaching a nozzle to the hose, dragging the tip of the nozzle along the edge of the floor, detaching the nozzle, and reattaching the hose end to the vacuum cleaner. Such exercises may be required several time in the course of cleaning a floor and becomes tedious.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,610,651 discloses an Automatic Cleaning Device with an air injector 50 and cooperating auxiliary cleaner 60 to urge debris towards a suction head 20, shown as prior art in FIG. 1. Unfortunately, the air injector 50 comprises a large diameter air injection pipe 51 directing a low velocity air flow against an adjacent wall, and the suction head is fairly narrow requiring the auxiliary cleaner 60 to push the debris inward towards the suction head 20. Because the auxiliary cleaner 60 must reach outside the body 10, portions of the auxiliary cleaner 60 are subject to accelerated wear.